Tag Archives: The Mr.

Whatever. I always scoffed at that statement. Like HELLO, we get it, life happens… but I am a grown-ass woman, and I know what I want, damnit. Right?

Right.

Someone recently pointed out that my Instagram account has been (relatively) quiet of late….
TBH all of Keri’s social media has been uber slow compared to my usual constant stream of overshare.

Here’s the thing – how many pics of “my Bae Caesar” (salad) can one person possibly Insta? At what point do even the most loyal of the Snap fam heavy sigh at yet ANOTHER salute to a Friday night charcuterie board with some (I think) clever caption about how fast I will be asleep on the floor in front of Twin Peaks after eating it? When does watching Dr Sissy and me exchange Mary Kate and Ashley GIFs on Twitter AGAIN drive a kind-hearted but still over it follower to mute because JUST ENOUGH ALREADY @todds_wife!?

What. A. Rut.

Long story short (too late) it was straight up Groundhog Day in Keri-land, yo. And one more Snap featuring Jr’s rainforest animals soother glowing on the ceiling while his favorite obscure Paul Simon song plays in the soothing half-light just suddenly felt like I was highlighting the horrifically mundane.

Can a girl get some variety in life, or what, universe!?

Here comes that “careful what you wish for” shit.

Labor Day weekend rolled around…. It was typical – there was pool time and BBQing and showing our fave brewery some consumer love and all of that….

And then Jr started to cough. By Monday evening when I put him into bed (and he coughed himself to sleep to “Rene and Georgette Magritte With Their Dog After the War,” natch,) I was ready for a shower and some sleep….

But when I emerged, wet haired and jammie-clad, down the stairs, I found The Mr folded up at a weird angle on the sofa, grimacing.

He’d stepped wrong off the bottom step in the garage and the top of his foot hurt. I grabbed a heating pad, chalked it up to our aging ligaments, and figured it would be fine by the morning,

12 hours later I had a son with a nasty viral lung funk and a husband with a foot that was broken in two places. I also had a slew of in-person meetings at the office with a visiting- from-out-of-town coworker, and no grandparents in town to help out with poor sicky Jr for at least the first day or two…

And as the days passed, and I marched on through the chaos, it dawned on me – you asked for different, Keri. You poked the universal bear.

Jr returned to school and all of his activities after a week of down time; twice a day I run Potter around the path by the reservoir so he can do his doggie business; I haul ass to the office every morning later than I’d like, hoping to NOT get the shittiest parking spot in the lot….

Things certainly did get a shake up , I guess.

You’re welcome, Snap Fam, for the eleventy billion additions to my story of me walking the dog and comparing The Mr’s air cast to an 80s ski boot.

Turns out variety doesn’t = exciting content after all. BUT, no more over-curating from Keri. After all, what breaks up the day better than a good social media over-share?

One of my asshole acquaintances younger friends said I am just celebrating the 20th anniversary of my 21st birthday.

Oh my damn.

It’s been 20 years since my 21st birthday.

And hey! Ya know what – when I think about it like that, maybe I should feel pretty damn good about things… I have figured a thing or two out (ok, maybe just the one,) in the 20 years that have passed since Dr Sissy and I sampled every sketchy-ass “birthday shot” that the fine establishments of Boulder had to offer before taking turns holding each other’s hair back at different times over the next two days. (#wondertwinpowers)

That got me to thinking, how IS 21 different than 41? Sometimes I feel EXACTLY like the girl who stood on the bar to kiss the buffalo with her sister on her 21st birthday, and not a day older…. and sometimes I am possessed by a cranky old lady barking at my husband to plug in my heating pad because I slept wrong the night before and “OY! MY BACK!”

What gives!?

Even at 41, I still hear the call of the Taco Bell drive thru when I have a shitty day at work… “Come Keri… get in line Keri… Nachos Bell Grande are the answer Keri. And a GIANT Mountain Dew.”

But they aren’t the answer… unless the question is “what is going to give you heartburn and make your damn pants not fit over your ass?” And people – let’s acknowledge that is NEVER the question. (I love you Taco Bell…. 4eva. But you do me so, SO wrong.)

41 year old Keri WANTS to slam endless quantities of coffee drinks, all day and night, like her 21 year old self did. 21 year old Keri practically lived at THE BEST coffee shop EVER (I also love you 4eva, Paris on the Platte, RIP,) working there in the early mornings, and then camping out on a stool at the bar all evening long while Dr Sissy worked her shifts. Then heading back to the single gal condo and sleeping peacefully, NBD. 41 year old Keri just told her coworker today that she has to “watch her caffeine any time after noon because otherwise I will be up all night.” What, the actual F**k, universe? How does that happen? Now that I am a wife and a mom and have more on my plate than ever – NOW I have to limit my intake of the sweet nectar of energy and decency that is coffee, or risk being up watching Copper Skillet infomercials during the few hours my schedule actually allows me to sleep? Damn you, 41.

21 year old Keri was ensconced in her perfect, walkable urban ‘hood, living on delicious (horrible) Big Bites and Hostess cupcakes, going to shows and showing off fresh ink while downing house shots at PS lounge….

Remembering all of that is amazing. But not the whole story. Nope… not at all.

21 year old Keri was freshly mugged, flat broke, back and forth dating two guys- neither of whom was right for her, and couldn’t get the air pockets in her bread to even out in culinary school (which is “rustic” now, but was “wrong” back then.) She was angry and lost and a little lonely.

I was 21 when I was diagnosed with MS. (Talk about angry and lost… whoa nelly.)

21 year old Keri had some shit going on. 21 year old Keri walked through fire.

21 was actually a major pivot for me – and it had nothing to do with the ability to order a drink.

And the things that happened that year set me on the path toward where I sit writing this now, in my dimly lit kitchen, about to get up and replace the blankets my son has no doubt kicked off, and fill the dog’s water, and kiss The Mr goodnight as he sleeps… it was 21 that set it all in motion, really.

Andplusalso, if you look hard enough, the best parts of that young woman are still right here, along with 20 years of hard fought understanding that have come along since then. 21 year old Keri buzzed around in her Jeep with the windows down and the music up. 41 year old Keri does the same. 21 year old Keri loved lingering and laughing over long tex-mex meals with her family, and that is exactly how 41 year old Keri is celebrating her birthday this evening.

21 year old Keri made bad jokes when she was nervous (and when she was not,) enjoyed looking at the mountains way more than spending time in them, cried whenever she heard Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s “Colorado Christmas,” missed her twin sister living(part time) in Indy like crazy, and was so damn grateful for every step she took, every sight she saw… every awful, wonderful perfect moment she got….

Join me as I accept my fate people. I am 3- 5 days out from a rip-roaring stomach virus incident. MAX.

How do I know this, you ask?

Because Monday afternoon, as I loaded Jr into his car seat after school he looked extra pooped out… he yawned a GINORMOUS yawn, and informed me his tummy hurt “all day.”

Two hours later I was in the thick of the battle zone of a tiny person’s barf, and fever, and lethargy, and all that is parenting a child with a stomach virus.

I had sent up the flares, battened down the hatches, busted out the Lysol and pedialyte and readied him and I for the coming darkness, and the long, LONG night it would bring.

I feel it is prudent to mention, at this juncture, that my only back up going into all of this was Binky the Wonder dog…. The Mr departed that morning on one of his VERY infrequent business trips, and my parents were deep in the heart of Texas with vague plans to return sometime midweek.

To be honest having The Mr out of the way was a blessing – at the slightest hint of sickness in the house, he drops into some sort of pre-emptive man-cold mode, wherein he spends copious amounts of time panicking about catching the illness and determines he should just start behaving as if it has already overtaken him. Not needed or welcome when I have an active barfer in the casa.

As for Binky? Well… he is good company, but he won’t crap in the yard which leaves me wheeling the tiny barfing human around the neighborhood bike paths in a wagon while begging him to “barf in the bag if you have to barf, buddy.” So yeah.

It was a typical stomach bug – quick and dirty, affording me many “opportunities” to do LOTS of loads of laundry at inopportune times.

As an unintended bonus, when The Mr’s parents arrive this weekend for their annual visit for Jr’s birthday, they will find a house that has been disinfected to the point that you could probably perform surgery on any surface of your choosing. There is not one damn thing I haven’t scrubbed, laundered, sprayed, or otherwise decontaminated at this point.

Jr’s recovery set in as quickly as the illness had – and by Tuesday afternoon he was climbing the walls and jamming along to “Sing” -which I had rented in an attempt to keep him occupied during a conference call. ( A plan that backfired when our internet and cable went down for a few hours in the middle of the day because the universe believes that I work best with a “challenge” evidently.)

But here’s the thing, and “primary parents” tell me if you don’t feel me here: I KNOW that shit is coming for me….

You can drink all the grape juice and diffuse all the frigging essential oils and partake in all the shameless bargaining prayer (No? Just me?) that you want to when these things hit your kids…

But you are UP. IN. IT.

You cannot tell me that your chances of ending up infected with that funk are not EXTRA HIGH when you are elbows deep in “the bucket” trying to clean it out from the last use when your kid walks up and yaks into it again (usually with the damn toilet RIGHT NEXT TO WHERE YOU ARE STANDING, WHY GOD WHY!?) Or when said adorable germ carrier snuggles down in bed for story time, then unleashes a solid minute long combo of sneezing/dry heaving/WTF else is that noise even IN YOUR FACE before falling dead asleep while you try to hold your breath and run out to create a Lysol smoke screen to kill that shit.

There is not enough Purell on the PLANET, friends. It’s a damn crap shoot at that point… it is cosmic forces…

I am in “the window.”

That period of days after the virus has departed your child where you wait to see if you too, will drop.

Where anything you eat has that moment of “will this burn coming back up if tonight is the night?” fear every time you make a meal selection.

Where hoping that if you choke on your water during that video conference, it won’t lead to a power barf into your brand new super cute home office trashcan while your coworkers watch.

Nothing can help me now, people…. Only time will tell my fate.

(How many of you reached for the Lysol just reading this? I know I would.)

If you should say, for example, feel some mounting frustration at someone in your world :::cough cough::: I totally mean The Mr. ::cough sputter cough cough::: and feel the need to mutter snide/sarcastic/petty/you get my drift comments under your breath about said person, learn from my mistake.

Before doing so – check the area for your offspring. Do NOT do so within even POSSIBLE earshot of said offspring.

Because family car rides go from awesome to awkward quicker than The Mr taking a corner inappropriately fast when Jr remarks innocently from the back seat “But daddy, you don’t know where we are going. You don’t even know your ass from your elbow.”

BTW – just because it is awkward, doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

Just Sayin’.

*also – when you write a blog post… make sure it doesn’t sit in your drafts folder for a couple weeks. Like this one did. Good tip, Keri.

There is no more revered and regarded event within our family’s weekly calendar than the meal which is so spectacular that it straddles the social norms for both timing and menu of TWO meals.

It is serious and significant family bonding time for us.

Yesterday morning at The Post, that family bonding hit a snag, people.

The entire damn family got stumped over the kids menu word scramble. We brought it home, but even minus the glorious glow of my Sunday mimosa, I am still at a loss.
Don’t judge me, HELP ME! WTF is that word:

Btw, if you follow me on Snapchat, you get these gems delivered right to your phone. @reluctntnburbs

Reluctantly Suburban Eats

Recipes: Eat, Drink, and be Keri

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